KSK was well-prepared for the match as you can see in the latest Kao TV (although he has spent much more time playing Dragon Quest X). He asked Nekojita (the Abel player) and a well-known online Cody player to train him. But Karipaku plays both arcade and online and has a well-known Abel player as adviser.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Daigo Umehara appeared as the special guest on tonight's TOPANGA TV to promote his Battle Tour 2013 charity events. See the recorded stream below (skip to 1:40:00 for Umehara).

Notes
- Although born in Aomori, Umehara has never visited Hokkaido (island where Sapporo is). (Aomori is near but on different island.)
- Fans then Mago asked him to play Ranked Match.
- It's very unusual for Umehara to talk casually and just have fun while playing. In fact, the last time we saw this is when he was on TOPANGA TV in June 2012.
- On his first opponent, Umehara asked Mago what character does this player use. Mago said Akuma. Then Umehara joked "Then I'm gonna counterpick with Yun."
- When the Akuma player blocked too much in the corner, Umehara said "I gave up" then jumped back to the opposite corner!
- Someone pointed out that Umehara was wearing Norman Tulloch brand sweater (made in Scotland) which is being sold for 14,000-16,000 yen.

There'll be 8 games. But the 8th game will be decided by donation drive as detailed in the web page. All the donations will go to Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

This is a very good news. Not only there'll be more games this year, they came up with a clever way to choose a game.

We're also excited to see Persona 4 Arena on the list. The game is a sleeping giant and all it needs is high level gameplays from a few well-known players on the big screen, as the game itself already is very spectator-friendly. (We're so hyped seeing Kazunoko vs. Alex Vallle and Tokido vs. Chris G at Canada Cup 2012.)

The 2nd Stratos Party on January 12
- Daigo Umehara, Fuudo, Mago, Nyanshi appeared in Gunslinger Stratos' 2nd Stratos Party. (Read about 1st Stratos Party here) The event is an offline event where players can come to find team members in order to compete in the official tournament on the next day. The location is the same as the tournament venue. There're free-play cabinets, UFO catchers, and merchandise for purchase.
- Umehara team played 2 rounds, won both.
- It was streamed here.

Umehara will visit 5 Taito Station game centers in 5 prefectures to play SSF4AE2012 with the participants. There will be talk show and raffle for 5 lucky participants. It is limited to 50 participants per shop. The participation fee is 500 yen. All of the fee will be donated to social welfare and charity organization. The event will be streamed at Taito Station's Ustream page where people from home can also make a donation (100 yen+) online. The donators will be presented special footage from Umehara.

SRK just posted a nice interview with Daigo Umehara from during Capcom's Street Fighter 25th Anniversary tournament in San Francisco.

The biggest news is Umehara has revealed that he will continue promoting arcade gaming like he did in the past two years. He will start as early as January 19 somewhere in Sapporo City (far northern of Japan). Furthermore, all the revenue from the events will be donated to buy wheelchairs for a non-profit organization that assists handicapped people. (The organization is lead by Osamu Ichikawa. The disabled player was helped by both Umehara and SRK community.)

The other interesting information is he wants to play SSF4AE2012 at highest level for fans so he doesn't want to spend time on other fighting games. (There goes the dream of seeing him play Darkstalkers Resurrections in a tournament?)